Nostalgy vs Crystal Clear Quality

[Revolverheld]

So what do you think when an good old movie is released on Blu Ray. Do you prefer it 'dirty and dusty' or crystal clear (looking like a new movie)?

I think both have their advantages, but sometimes the older version seems to have a special charisma. It's like a good, aged wine.

Feel free to share your ideas (pro/contra) and give some examples that come into your mind.

[spoRv]

If it was shot on film, it SHOULD show grain - that's a must.

Then, if the restoration is well done, it could seem "fresh"; but I don't dislike those "aged" masters used sometimes, but they should be quite good, not full of speckles and dirt... maybe in the middle is the right compromise, but for each title there is a different level of "middleness"!

[PDB]

Agreed with spoRv, grain and original color must be maintained.

I can see advantage for both versions. I actually like a what you would see in the theater version with all the dust, hair, rips etc (like Team Negative's Grindhouse Empire). But if we are talking what should be on Blu-ray and sold to the consumers, a perfectly clean version only should be sold. Outside of grain, hairs and dirt shouldn't be there.

[Revolverheld]

Yeah, since those old movies were shot on film, grain is a must-be It becomes ugly when they smooth those classics.

[CatBus]

There's a lot of things you'd see in a theater that you might not want to see in a home video release:

Gate weave: Films wobbled about a bit, and I generally prefer things stabilized. I've seen a film where a misaligned optical fade effect was probably less visible in the theatres due to gate weave, but was very clear on a stable medium--but in spite of that I preferred the film to be stable.

Cue marks: Aside from the "cue marks which serve a purpose as part of the film" in Fight Club, I don't want these either. Still, when I see a transfer with them, I do think to myself "ahhhh, film" and it is charming in a way.

Dirt & scratches: Fresh out of the can, a film is pretty clean. By the time it's been in circulation a while, though, it can be a real mess. I prefer clean, and I'm fine if it's cleaner than it ever was even fresh out of the can due to scanning the negative.

Grain: I prefer real grain, from the negative. A projected film would have a few extra layers of grain from various stages of the duplication process, so it might not be exactly the same as the negative's grain. But I don't want fake grain added, and I certainly don't want it removed. Nevertheless, Hollywood's "remove all grain" fixation seems to have been replaced with "degrain/regrain" which is only marginally better.

Resolution: I gotta say I like the extra resolution of negative scans. I know it shows detail that wasn't visible on duplicate prints in theatres, but I don't care. I love it, and only rarely does the extra detail prove to be a problem (showing wires for special effects, etc).

Color: I like when the goal of the restoration is to match theatrical colors, but I understand that isn't always achievable. Negative scans often have nothing like theatrical colors, and color grading has to be redone from scratch anyway--and it's very hard to make digital color grading match what was achieved using photochemical means (and that's assuming you have an accurate color reference in the first place). Also, I like when they try to match the yellower hue of old projector bulbs when appropriate--DVDs of older films were quite often too blue and cold.

[spoRv]

^^^ agree to everything this guy wrote! ^^^

[jerryshadoe]

Would love to have a unique answer here, but CatBus pretty much covers it all and I agree

[CatBus]

And maybe some BD-Java wizardry to make it so every now and then watching a Blu-ray, you get a broken reel, everything goes white, and you have to manually jump to the next chapter stop. Or the frame freezes on screen and it bubbles and burns. You know, the theatrical experience

[jerryshadoe]

Most people would be annoyed by that, but I think that would be hilarious. Would definitely "re-create" the theatrical experience, but only if you were the projectionist as the audience just sits there and waits, LOL

[guiser]

I actually don't mind the gate weave effect on older titles that occurred as part of the optical printing process for titles and credits. These I don't want corrected when the film is converted to digital (even if the frames themselves are stabilized). This could also go under the "theatrical presentation" category as well.

I also like the cue marks on older transfers (they date the transfer itself), but realize that these don't happen much any more since transfers are most likely from earlier generations.